Honestly, I’m taking Ion’s answer with a grain of salt. Using 9.2.5 dark ranger customizations (and Sepulcher end bosses) as an example, Blizzard seems to be taking a new approach of secrecy/surprise with certain kinds of content. Taliesen even asked Steve Danuser if we’d be getting dark rangers before 9.2.5 hit, and Steve did not say yes (granted, he didn’t outright deny it either, but the key thing is that Blizzard isn’t going to confirm a given thing that they may indeed have planned just because an interviewer asks them about it).
Even if they do indeed have allied races planned, I wouldn’t expect Ion to say “yes” and announce them just because Wowcrendor asked him point blank. I would fully expect those allied races to not be announced until Blizzard wants to announce them, even if that means lying about their existence and keeping them a surprise until patch day.
Besides, Ion said they’re still very open to the system, and then specified there’d be no AR’s for “Dragonflight right at launch”. I’m definitely biased and may be overanalyzing his verbiage, but I think there’s a moderate probability that we get some sort of AR between 10.1 and the end of the expansion.
Or I could be wrong and there may indeed be no AR’s planned, period. That’d be sad, but okay. But I just don’t know why we’d expect Ion to answer this question truthfully in this kind of small-scale, casual interview setting, especially when things like AR’s make perfect surprise content that fits in line with Blizzard’s secrecy/higher encryption philosophy lately. (Additionally, confirming certain AR’s now could spoil the story of certain zones/cultures before we’ve even experienced them)
We are already getting one new race this expansion. Why all the anger about not getting more? the last expansion that gave us 1 race and 1 class (at the same time), was MoP.
Not personally concerned about new races. We already have a huge array of races. More isn’t always better. There bigger fish to fry when our race count is already way up there with the best. WoW has foundational issues that need iterating badly. A Tuskar skin on panda skeleton won’t change anything.
Launch
No new allied races for the launch, which everyone already knew. Your title is a bit misleading, they never said they would not have them later in the expac.
I think where they went wrong was having light and shadow being opposites instead of both being in the sphere of light.
It really should have been light/shadow vs void/darkness.
Then shadow priests would make perfect sense, but go back to the shadowy roots, and then have a separate cultist class version that’s themed around the darker/void aspects and old gods and such.
A shadow can only exist in the presence of light where void and shadow are both the absence of something, one is light, and the other, all.
I’d really like to see it go the route of the subrace UI that was shown on the EU forums a while back. With added things to fully flesh it out like new voice sets and proper flavor racials. Heritage sets and such.
There’s a lot of great things that could be done with a setup like that.
Voice sets would be great. Pick human, then pick a voice set based on where you want your human from…gilneas, stormwind, kultiras…this wouldn’t be the larger body or actual worgen unless you picked those. More variety.
Wildhammer and the dark ranger stuff could have been so much more with proper effort put in.
A big customization overhaul would be a good place to go in and add a bunch of new allied/subrace options as part of the customization process.
Problem with the class/race we are getting, is they’re the same thing. Not two different things like they should be.
Dracthyr should have more classes available and have all races as visage options like dragons do. Then you’ve essentially got evokers of any race, and you have many more class options for your dracthyr.
As for nonstop allied races…eh. Customization is something that should be nonstop. Each patch should have things added. There should be a team dedicated to this. Players would love it.
There’s a bunch of races that should have already been playable by now and with the way things are going, likely never will be. That’s very disappointing.
There are races that are already part of the alliance and horde that we can’t play as and so many others that’d be fantastic additions.
Really doesn’t seem like any difference. If there was something planned he could have easily said “but we have some surprises for later on in the expansion.” So little said that would go so far.
There are no brand new rigs. Every rig in game starts as a previous one and then sometimes is used as is, or tweaked to various degrees to make new ones. It’s smart business. You wouldn’t start from scratch when you can take something existing, and tweak it to get what you want.
Same problem exists with the dracthyr evoker.
I’m primarily a melee player. I could easily I’m not getting something new this expansion either since they’ve linked the two together instead of letting dracthyr be other classes.
I will likely make one and give it a go, but I’m in the same boat as many others that I’d have really liked having a melee dracthyr to play as. Most of the dragons we’ve fought in-game have been large tanky and melee with some spells and breath thrown in. That’d have been a fun playstyle and it’s weird they skipped it.
Enabling players the ability to use a couple assets that already existed for npcs is barely doing the bare minimum. They could have put in the effort and put out a darkfallen race that encompassed dark rangers and perhaps even san’layn and made it something really impressive, but nope.
I’ve got a character that I’d like to use the red eyes on and can’t since he’s a death knight. Red and green would be great and could easily be added. Maybe even orange.
Sure does.
Also, throw some Vrykul in that list
Maybe even some night elven worgen…ooh naga.
Never. There’s tons that need to be added.
It could be possible.
There was quite the outcry concerning customizations and now they’re saying they want to go and expand customizations on existing races to be more inline with dracthyr.
I agree as long as they do it properly and make new voice sets where they are needed.
Wildhammer shouldn’t have the same voice set as a bronzebeard…voice sets would be a great customization option and it does sound like the framework is being set up for selecting different ones, so perhaps it’s something they could add.
I still think things like Keepers and Dryads would make great druid balance forms or even heals.
I’d still really like to have Naga as an option. Only armor piece they don’t wear is shoes. Might have to get creative for riding a mount, but I was fine with the Sea Elven WereSnake fan suggestion over on MMO-champ. I’d certainly play one if I got to be a naga. That’d basically give them an avatar form to mount with. Also additional thing to customize and if transforming wasn’t forced, it’s just a new way to play.
Yup, it sucks.
Wildhammer are not bronzebeard. We lack the voice sets and flavor racials they should have gotten to set them apart. Perhaps even variations on the body. I’d be fine with them being lumped in as customizations as long as there were alternate voice sets and racials to choose from so you can set up a proper wildhammer or whatever race we’re talking.
Another example would be if San’layn were added in as customizations…I’d be fine with this if there were proper voice sets we could select and some racials that gave the race the proper flavor of being a vampire.
They shouldn’t have the voice lines of a regular blood elf nor the racials. I think for me, that’s the main reason I want something to be an allied race over customizations.
Throw in some heritage armor and quests and it’s even better.
I just want proper voice sets and flavor racials. They’re adding the framework to select a voice set, so let’s have new ones made for everyone. More variety.
I would love these changes. Make no mistake, just because Blizz added a few customizations for some racial groups in Shadowlands does not mean I endorse those customizations or think they’re sufficient representation (the singular sand troll skin color which isn’t even the right hue is pretty egregious). I just think people tend to jump the gun when they say an entirely new race needs to be made in order to add cool variations to the game. On quite the contrary, making identites into AR’s is the worst possible thing for them; it turns them into gimmicks with only a limited variety of customizations on par with vanilla’s race options (and we know Blizz is never going to give any AR enough customizations so that they feel as distinguished and diverse as the core races).
To me, barber shop options and customizations should fill the roles of some of the only decent things the AR system added. As a regular Tauren (in a world without HM Tauren) you should be able to change your totem appearances, druid form appearances, and horns at the barber to turn yourself into a HM Tauren in addition to switching voices (BTW, alt voices should be something embraced beyond the AR system).
As for racials, I don’t really feel like they mean much to me. However, something I think could be intresting is what I’d call “dispositions.” Basically, different members of the same race have different mentalities and ideals, so switching between “dispositions” (perhaps also at the barber or someplace more serious) should change around your racials to match that. For example, Mag’har racials are very similar to regular Orc racials except they have unique gameplay twists and are themed around the Mag’har’s more traditional outlook. However, we’ve seen some Mag’har break from tradition and we’ve seen some default orcs adhere to it strongly. Why not label the current orc racial set to something like “Conqueror” and the current mag’har set to “Traditionalist” and allow orc players to switch between the two?
A lot of racials are pretty meh, that’s why I was saying flavor racials…things that add a little flavor to the race.
Like with Wildhammer…some gryphon themed stuff, or maybe even the storm hammer as a racial.
San’layn having a blood sucking racial or a selectable travel ability to turn into a bat,cloud of mist, wolf, etc.
Fun little things, rather than stuff that boosts numbers and such.
Highmountain could definitely have been rolled into Tauren, and if it included the voice set like you’d mentioned, that’d be fine with me.
I’m at the point where I wouldn’t have minded if lightforged or void was a overarching customization option, where you picked it and then picked your race, and the customizations applied to all the races instead of just one.
Then you could make a paladin character like Turalyon. Or maybe you wanted something like Alosus Faol.
When we were discussing the posibility of a dark fallen allied race, we were even suggesting some racials that did the same thing, but had different visuals depending on if you went the dark ranger route vs the san’layn route. Like with the travel form…maybe san’layn could turn into a bat or cloud of mist, where a dark ranger could choose to be a banshee. Although I’m all for giving them options and letting players choose which they want, regardless of which they’d set their character up as.
Theirs so much they could do for Wildhammer Dwarves if given the proper Allied Race treatment, look at the Dark Iron Dwarves for example.
As previously mentioned the biggest factors could be Voice and Racials, Customisations could be immensely unique far more then just Tattoos… currently Wildhammer Dwarves are literally Bronzebeard Dwarves in cosplay.
Customisations options could be expanded immensely with unique Hair, Beard, Moustache styles, more wild and rugged, messy Braids, Gryphon feathers attached then the standard Bronzebeard styles most of us just have to put up with… could even add Lightning Charged Eyes as a variation of choices from regular eyes to further set them apart.
Heritage Armour, Unique Mounts, perhaps you get a juvenile Gryphon as your ground mount not being able to fly, it’s well known that Wildhammer Dwarves have a special kinship with gryphon’s.
Racials would be a great change too, instead of Stoneform they could have Stormhammer, a Wildhammer Signature weapon and ability throw a Stormhammer stunning the target, instead of Frost resistance increase nature resistance, switch out might of the mountain for increase Nature, Frost and Fire spells Crit damage by 2%… Wildhammer dwarves are also well known with how close they are to Shamanism which makes sense.
And finally Falstad needs to get the model update needed and lose the Bronzebeard look he so desperately needs.
Also it’s known in lore Wildhammer Dwarves have been Druids, this also greatly opens up the Druid Class to a Dwarven Race expanding on choices available on the Alliance side.
Let’s not also forget unique totems aswell for Shamans rather then using the current Bronzebeard totems since Cataclysm…
Sorry if grammar is all over the place literally quickly responding from the phone at my work lunch break.
The thing is, they and the Mag’har are part of the reason I have my position on this topic. I felt like they were both done incredibly dirty and have lost so much of what made me want them to begin with. In vanilla content, I loved the fact that the Dark Irons were simply dwarves with dark skin and red eyes. In TBC content, I liked the fact that Mag’har were just orcs with more skin options (non-green ones). Now neither can ever be as fleshed out as their original NPC iterations because they’ve been cut off from the vast array of Orc and Dwarf customization options. Differences that didn’t exist between them and the core races were created for BfA specifically to justify them being separate races (flaming beards for Dark Irons and unique hairstyles for both of them).
I feel like people are now conditioned to believe that these things are only possible through AR’s since their introduction was the first time these were added in. However, these were (and still are) all already possible without AR’s. New voice options could be introduced to Dwarves, new customizations that go beyond just tatoos, barber options that allow you to change flavors of abilities (as druids already have).
If they’re treated anything like the Dark Irons and Mag’har, you’ll get 7 new hairstyles (but be unable to ever attain the regular Dwarven ones), 7 unique beard styles (similarly, no default dwarven ones), 8 eye colors (one of them is the lightning-charged eyes you mentioned but the other 7 are from regular Dwarves; the additional 12 Ironforge Dwarf colors will be unavailable). Now for you, if you’re lucky, you might find that at least one choice in each of these features suits your taste. But for many people who’ve wanted to play as the other identites who were turned into allied races, this hasn’t been the case. And, unfortunately, there are no core race customizations to fall back onto (because you separated them).
This is about the only good thing I think can be said for Allied Races–since they’re categorized separately in-game, it allows for the game to give them unique, race-based quests that are exclusive to members of their in-group. However, is depriving regular Dwarves from doing such quests really worth crippling the Wildhammers in such a plethora of other ways? Just let all Dwarves do the quest and train gryphons and whatnot. Besides, since the three clans are at peace again, it would make sense that a Wildhammer dwarf would be willing to share a part of Wildhammer culture with an Ironforge.
These are a bit trickier, so you may have me beat here. I want most of the AR’s to be fused into their core variants, but I’m not 100% how they’d then deal with the AR’s racials once the AR’s themselves were destroyed. But I do have one idea that I think would allow those racial sets to still exist while also opening the door to racial customization in the future.
As for your comments on Druids, isn’t the lore for playable Dwarven shamans basically just the reintroduction of the Wildhammer dwarves to Ironforge? If so, that means every Dwarf shaman you meet is either a wildhammer or has perhaps received tutelage from a wildhammer. In that case, I don’t see why they couldn’t just give all dwarves the ability to be druids and explain it away in the same fashion. This is also how I’d imagine stormwind humans becoming shaman and druids in my ideal Stormwind-Kul’tiran merging.
How do I neglect context by transcribing the answer verbatim?
He also says they are not currently planned. Full stop. In this same round of PR, he mentions that the next expansion is being actively worked on before the “current” one is released.
-I can tell you how: You missed part of the answer, the crucial part, and just read the wowhead article and didn’t listen to the interview. Go listen to it.
-You’re using “full stop” wrongly, because he continued speaking.
-Teams can work on more things than one at a time, I’m not sure why this needs to be explained to you. : \
Your headline is lying, and it’s annoying. You should change it.
